


With Honey

by gwyllion



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyllion/pseuds/gwyllion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was written as a  fill for <a href="http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/34275.html?thread=36171235#t36171235">this</a> frozen prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Honey

Bradley’s fingers gripped the key tight as he inserted it into the lock. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the noise of the city street below, trying to put the trappings of the outside world behind him. Since he had been spotted leaving the train, he wanted nothing more than to escape the prying eyes and the shouts of fans. He didn’t want to pose for pictures or sign an autograph, not even for the small child who shyly asked him if he was a _real king_. Instead, he hauled his backpack over his shoulder and turned up the volume on his iPod. Bradley wanted to go home.

The last strains of the Cardiff summer wafted through the open window on the landing. Children played in a fenced yard. Birds sang in the fading sunlight before they’d begin their journey south. An ice cream truck chimed its annoying song as the vendor sought to squeeze one more pound out of a parent’s wallet before the chill of autumn sliced through the city. Finally, after some fiddling with the ancient lock, Bradley forced the deadbolt to slide open and he stepped into the flat.

Closing the door behind him, Bradley let his back rest against the door. He took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent of domesticity. A pair of trainers, their laces still tied, sat on the rug just inside the door where their owner had left them. The scent of the Arrabbiata sauce he had burnt by accident while making dinner the previous night welcomed him with the reminder that he still had some pot-scrubbing to do.

Bradley only noticed that his hands were shaking when the tinkle of the keys jangled in the silence. He dropped them into the bowl that sat on a short table just inside the door. The bowl was something Colin had picked up while antique-shopping on a rare day off. A speckled piece of blue and grey pottery, it could be called ugly by anyone’s standards, but Colin had an open heart where a bargain was to be had. Colin had bartered for the bowl, trading only his spare change that amounted to less than a pound.

“Colin,” Bradley whispered, glancing toward the window.

Justin had wanted Colin to stay behind for a retake of an earlier scene. He needed yet another close-up of Colin’s face as the special effects people made Merlin’s his eyes blaze with gold. The sun had come out and the huge zit that Colin sported in the original take had shrunk into something less obvious over the course of the three days they had filmed in the Forest of Dean, an hour-long train ride north.

Bradley looked at his watch, wishing wistfully that he stayed behind so he and Colin could have caught the same train. Deep down he knew that it behoved them to travel separately, lest their actions give credibility to the ideas Katie had planted in the minds of fangirls. No, they had both thought it was best to keep their relationship hidden, for now at least. There had always been an air of trepidation between them, a wondering if they could make this last… whatever _this_ was. They never intended to be a pair of romantics who dated each other while they were in the public eye, only to break up amid a scandal, as celebrities so often did. Sure _this_ was fun, but how could they possibly believe they were meant for each other? How could they be sure? Colin would be along any minute and they could talk about what happened.

God, did Colin feel it too? Would Colin be as wrecked as Bradley was?

Bradley rubbed a hand over his chest. His heart ached—not like he was having a premature heart attack or that empty feeling like he got when he once saw a cat get run over by a car, but a piercing ache that stabbed directly through his chest and radiated painfully through him, like every nerve was pricked with thorns. He knew it was futile to try to shake the feeling off, to put it aside so he could feel normal again. A load of laundry needed folding, the trash should be taken out to the bin, and he needed to add to their grocery list, but all these necessities of daily living would be shoved to the wayside after what they had been through today.

Tea, Bradley thought.

Colin would want tea.

With honey, because his throat had been worn as if by sandpaper when he uttered his final lines.

Bradley toed off his shoes, leaving them with the trainers on the rug. In the kitchen, he filled the kettle and set it to boil. He walked to the window that looked out over the suburban street. There was no sign of Colin yet. Bradley fell into the recliner and buried his face in his hands, his shoulders wracked with tension.

The lines were there in the script. He had read them a hundred times. He and Colin had read them a dozen times together from the moment they held the revamped episode thirteen in their hands. He knew what was coming, but he could not have been prepared for what happened.

He hadn’t known the emotion that Colin evoked in him could reach such depth, that it could wrench his heart out of his chest. To hear him, his lover, his friend, the person who he cared about more than anything and anyone on earth… take after take after take after take. The sound of Colin’s voice calling out for the CGI dragon who might help to save Arthur’s life. Pleading. Desperate. Colin’s throat had rumbled in Bradley’s ear all afternoon as he emoted the agony of losing all that was precious to him, the other side of the coin that was as much a part of him as his own skin, his own flesh and blood. Colin was a pro. Each take had been stronger than the one before it, more urgent when the fate of the characters became more dangerously close to death. And then, it had happened.

Bradley remembered what it was like when he promised himself to Merlin all those years ago, the words he had spoken as he faced certain death. It was only when he replayed his death that he felt the centuries-old emotions squeeze his heart. 

Bradley delivered the last line he would speak as King Arthur. His eyes rolled back into his head and he breathed his last breath.

With each new sob from Colin, Bradley almost dissolved into tears.

“Stay with me,” Merlin had pleaded, his eyes welling over.

Bradley remembered his promise. He had fought hard to open his eyes and meet Merlin’s tearful gaze. Yes, he would stay with Merlin, now and always, through this death and into the next life and the next. Always. How could anyone resist Merlin’s achingly sorrowful pleas? He remembered them as if it were yesterday, although they had been uttered only hours earlier, just as they had been centuries before.

Bradley’s head jerked up when he heard Colin’s key in the lock.

He crossed the living room in four long strides to meet Colin at the door.

End

**Author's Note:**

> With Honey was originally posted [here](http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/22767.html?thread=39937775#t39937775) as a bonbon.


End file.
